Hugh MacCaghwell, O.F.M. Obs. (†1626)

Archbishop Hugh MacCaghwell
O.F.M. Obs.
Born
Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland
Nationality Ireland
Died
Rome, Italy

Hugh MacCaghwell (Latin: Cavellus) was born in 1571 in Downpatrick, in County Down.1 In Irish, his name is Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil, but he is more often known by the nickname Aodh Mac Aingil (Latin: Hugo Angelicus). Because of the persecution in Ireland, he went to Spain to study for the priesthood, and there he joined the Santiago Province of the Observants in 1603 or 1604. Juan de Ovando was one of his teachers.2 In 1607, he helped to found the Irish College in Louvain, where he taught theology for fourteen years. While there he published a new edition of the Opus Oxoniense in 1620. The following year he was elected definitor general. In 1623 he began teaching theology in Rome in the friary of Aracoeli. There he also began collecting material that would eventually be used in the Wadding edition, making him possibly the single greatest contributor to it.3 He was appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland in 1625, but he died before he could return to Ireland. His episcopal consecration took place on June 7, 1626, in the College of St. Isidore (The Irish College), where he lived. Struck by a grave illness, he was taken to the friary of Aracoeli for treatment, but he died on September 22, 1626. His epitaph, which is included in Wadding’s profile of him, says he was 55.4

Although he did not write a commentary on the Opus Oxoniense, his 1620 edition does include scholia that briefly explain the text. They were reprinted in the Wadding edition (1639). See PRDL for his publications prior to the Wadding edition.

  1. On his life, see Alessandro M. Apollonio, “L’intellezione dei singolari materiali nelle ‘Annotationes’ di Hugo Cavellus alle Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De anima attribuite al beato G. Duns Scoto” (PhD thesis, Pontificia Universitas Sanctae Crucis, 2003), 90–91; Joseph MacMahon, “Irish Franciscan Scotists of the Seventeenth Century,” in Acts of the Franciscan History Conferences of 2007 and 2008, ed. Jens Röhrkasten, Canterbury Studies in Franciscan History 2 (Canterbury: Franciscan International Study Centre, 2009), 92–93.↩︎

  2. Cf. Isaac Vázquez Janeiro, Los Juan de Ovando. Dos teólogos homónimos del siglo XVI (Madrid: Instituto Francisco Suárez del C.S.I.C., 1980), 19.↩︎

  3. Cf. MacMahon, “Irish Franciscan Scotists of the Seventeenth Century,” 101, 107.↩︎

  4. Luke Wadding, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum : quibus accessit Syllabus illorum, qui ex eodem Ordine pro fide Christi fortiter occubuerunt. Priores atramento, posteriores sanguine, Christianam religionem asserverunt (Romae: ex Typographia Francisci Alberti Tani, 1650), 178, https://books.google.com?id=ygQ_AAAAcAAJ.↩︎